A/N: I know a lot of the phraseology is similar, between the parts. It's supposed to be that way, but I'm sorry if it is annoying.

Disclaimer: Still not mine.

Warnings: Getting a little warmer.

"You shouldn't be here, brother." Loki was slumped against the wall, his eyes burning in the fluorescent light of his prison cell. He couldn't sleep. There was no use in trying anymore, not at this point.

Thor hadn't been to see him since they had returned from Midguard together. Loki could still feel the metal of the gag if he thought about it, which he tried not to do, though he often failed. After nine months, he had figured Thor was simply done with him.

Now, though. Thor was standing in the shadows outside his cell. Loki couldn't see him fully, but he knew he was there. He could tell he wasn't wearing his armor, and thus was probably there against orders from Odin. Loki could make out a long cloak, but that was about it. From the slump of Thor's shoulders it stood to reason he hadn't slept in days. Thor had dismissed the guards outside the cell, leaving them alone. Curious.

"Did you come all the way over here after all this time and dismiss the guards so you could stare at me through glass? I am not a caged creature to fawn over." Loki turned, seeking Thor's face. He smirked in his brother's direction, while trying hard to dismiss the emotion that was welling in his chest. He had missed his brother. He had forgotten that he had not always seen him as an oaf, had not always seen him as foolish and childish.

Loki never realized how much he needed Thor until he had ruined things between them. Loki hadn't slept in a month, slowly growing more and more destructive, not that there was much to destroy in his cell. He couldn't think past the not sleeping. And he couldn't think past the not sleeping because of Thor. Thor and warmth, Thor and his breath on Loki's neck, wrapped together like lovers, almost. Thor, the only person who knew that Loki had nightmares, the only person who had ever held him through the night. The only person Loki would let hold him.

Loki spent his days trying to not think about Thor and instead worked on the guards, worked over himself.

Finally he had lost all his privileges, leaving him sitting in the light 24 hours a day, without food and only enough water to keep him living, but not enough to dispel the fogginess that clung to his thoughts. He was lucky they hadn't bound and gagged him again. He figured that was the next step if he didn't stop pounding on the glass walls of his cage until his hands and arms turned blue with bruises. Blue as a Jotun.

Why is he here? What does he want? Loki stared as Thor came closer to the glass. He looked like he was about to fall over, exhaustion clear even in his gait. Usually Thor moved with grace, but now he moved with the boneless fluidity of those whose exhaustion was so heavy it made sleep impossible. Thor's eyes were shadowed with bruises underneath, riming him in darkness. The cloak he was wearing was a green so dark it was almost black, full and velvet. It set off his gold hair, which was too long and mussed.

My colors. He's wearing my colors.

"You are correct, brother. I should not be here." Thor's voice was gravelly and hoarse. "Had I told anybody of my plans, I am sure they would have told me I will soon regret my actions."

Suddenly one of the glass walls to Loki's cage disappeared. Thor walked in and the glass reappeared behind him. The lights cut, leaving the cell in complete darkness. Loki felt his nerves prickle as he counted the slow measure of Thor's booted footsteps in the darkness.

"Will I regret my actions?" Thor whispered. His voice was close enough that Loki could tell Thor was standing right in front of the bed. There is nobody here. You are alone. Nobody will ever know.

Loki got up off the bed. He reached for Thor and wound his hands in the velvet of his cloak, a precious reminder of who this man in his cell was. They were not children any longer. This was not their old days of sharing a bed, two children seeking warmth, innocent and fit together like stacking cups, one the prince of the sun, the other the prince of the dark side of the moon. That is, one not really a prince at all.

Loki rubbed his face against the velvet, hoping the movement was small enough that Thor wouldn't notice. Then he thumbed the pin holding Thor's cloak together, something heavy and set with stones, and it fell open, revealing thin sleep clothes. Loki breathed in as he ran his hands over the familiar lines of cotton his brother had always slept in. He hoped his touch was answer enough for Thor. He didn't trust himself to speak. Loki trailed a hand down Thor's side, amazed that he was being let, while an approving sound emanated from Thor's chest. Thor had lost weight; Loki could feel it just from the running of hands over a side. Then again, so had he.

"I cannot sleep." Thor rasped out as Loki cupped a hand around the base of his brother's skull. Loki leaned in and pressed a kiss to his cheek. Thor groaned low in his throat and wrapped his arms around Loki, crushing them together. He freed one arm to wrap about Loki's throat, tilting his head back. The gesture, a common one used by Thor in battle, was instead something intimate. This was not Thor in battle, nor Loki in battle. Loki didn't know what this was.

"I cannot either," Loki replied.

Loki tilted his head, baring his throat, even though he could feel his pulse hammering under his skin, telling himself not to trust this, not to push it. Thor pressed a kiss against the white of Loki's throat. Loki could feel the heat of Thor's mouth open against him, heat and the tiniest flicker of tongue, almost an accident, but Loki couldn't help shifting his hips into his brother's. Loki breathed in slowly, trying not to gasp, but his arms were shaking and he was hard.

Focus. Thor smelled like iron and sun and power. Loki wound his arms around his brother's shoulders, tangling his hands in Thor's unkempt hair. Then he pushed Thor down on the bed, pressing him against the wall. Thor folded easily, eyes blazing with sleepless fever in the dark of the cell.

He came here from his quarters without even bothering to change. Loki remembered a night long ago when such scene occurred frequently, Thor imploring to be let into Loki's bed, holding him like a pillow. Loki had never been able to say no, somehow. Loki wasn't going to think about his inability to say no and the dreams he had sometimes. Dreams he shouldn't have, Thor's gold hair stuck to the back of his neck, skin flushed with pleasure. In every dream his hands were around Loki's neck and Loki let him, arching into the touch, flooded with heat not his own.

Loki blinked, trying to clear his mind of the need thinking of the dreams always brought to him.

He bent to pick up the cloak from the floor and then clambered into the bed with his brother, pulling the cloak over them. He turned his back to Thor, unable to face him.

"You are wearing my colors," Loki said.

Thor reached out and pulled Loki against him, a move familiar but all the more aching for the loss of it since recent events had thrown the brothers apart. Thor nosed at the back of his neck like he used to, exhaling thickly, like he was choking back tears. Loki shivered at the heat and sighed before he could stop himself, a small noise. Thor stilled against Loki's back. Then a hand ran down his side and over a hip. Thor tugged up Loki's shirt and settled warm against skin, thumbing slow circles against the curve of his iliac crest. Loki shifted back into Thor, flush against him, desire and terror warring in him, not wanting to lose this after so long.

"Sleep," Thor whispered.

And in the dark, then, huddled together under a velvet cloak the color of Loki's eyes, wrapped in the arms of the one comfort he could not have, Loki fell asleep believing he had finally gone mad.

When Loki woke, in fluorescent light once more, cheeks tight with dry trails of salt, bed too warm for just him, but alone, he threw himself against the glass again and again until a contingent of guards rushed in. They forced him on the ground, bound his hands and ankles, gagged him, and then tossed him unceremoniously back into his bed. Loki managed to shift onto his side after a while so he could stare at the wall without the guards staring at him.

There, wedged between the bed and the wall was a gold cloak pin set with emeralds, barely visible.

Loki rolled onto his stomach and bit on the gag until he tasted blood.